Mercy Lewis

Mercy Lewis (1674-unknown) was a servant of Thomas Putnam and one of the chief accusers in the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. She was discovered dancing in the nude by Reverend Samuel Parris with other Salem girls in the forest, and she would later move to Boston and die at an unknown time.

Biography
Mercy Lewis was born in 1674 in Falmouth, Maine, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and on 30 September 1689 an attack by the Native Americans killed her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and most of her cousins, leading to her moving to Salem with a married sister. Lewis became a servant for Thomas Putnam and Ann Putnam in Salem, and she became a friend of Ruth Putnam and her cousin Mary Walcott as well as with other Salem girls such as Abigail Williams and Betty Parris. In 1692, she joined them for a ritual dance in the forest near Salem, with Reverend Samuel Parris' slave Tituba conducting the ritual. Lewis threw a frog in a boiling pot, hoping to conjure Salem boy Jacob Pope, and she would later strip down naked and begin dancing with other girls. Reverend Parris discovered the girls dancing, and they all ran away, leaving only Abigail with blood on her mouth from drinking a chicken's blood. Lewis, Abigail, and some other girls made accusations of witchcraft against Tituba and other women from the town, enjoying themselves as they condemned local women to death. Later, Ruth would accuse Mercy herself of being a witch, and she moved in with her aunt in Boston after the Salem Witch Trials ended. In 1701, she married a Mr. Allen there, and it is unknown when she died.